A Rose After Winter
by fieryxgirl
Summary: They said that life was not a song, but what if the Gods wrote one more song, one for Sansa? Willas x Sansa oneshot, future!fic / AU


**Author's Notes**

originally meant to be Loras / Sansa, but it turned into this, and I think I like it better this way! Let me know what you think!

* * *

Boyish shouts filled the courtyard, echoing off the strong limestone walls. Two boys wheeled in and out of the hedges and the roses, much to the dismay of their lady mother.

"Rickard!"she called, "Rickard!" and the second born son of two and ten stopped playing and ran over to her. Brown curls sat atop his head, and and his eyes were a piercing blue.  
"Don't ruin my roses" she smiled, rocking her six month old daughter, Desmera in her arms. The babe's hair was mahogany, the only one of the four children who did not have brown hair. Her eyes were grey, a recessive trait from her mother's family. The small girl was no more than a twelvemonth old, but she was calm and didn't cry, even though noise was filling the gardwn

The second boy came circling in, unable to catch his elder brother.

"Mama, can I hold her?" begged the youngest one, of only six.

"Later, my sweet Tomard." she answered, "She's sleeping, so keep your voice low" she whispered in her son's ear, and he smiled happily up at her.

"I hope you're not being too harsh, my sweet Sansa" jested a man's strong voice, and she turned her head to glance over her shoulder. A smile erupted on her young face as her husband came down the path. He walked with a cane, the result of an injury during his first ever tourney. He had difficulty walking, but it didn't stop him from being highly educated and a skilled tactician despite being unable to fight himself. The skill of fighting was mostly unneeded anyway, for the realm had been subject to a long period of peace.

Behind Sansa's husband came a comely knight, grown out of his arrogance. He was deeply engrossed in a conversation with a younger male, but a man almost grown. He was five and ten, named Willem. The heir to Highgarden.

"How was your sword fighting lesson, my son?" she called, catching the attention of the two males behind Willas. Before Willem could reply, Sansa addressed the knight.

"Loras, I hope you were not too hard on him!" jested Sansa

"He is coming along nicely, my sister. Perhaps a few bruises for the morn!" responded the master-at-arms, a large smile across his face.

"I am pleased to hear it." smiled Sansa fondly.

"Loras! Loras" called Tomard, pulling on his uncle's breeches.

"Now now, little lord, patience" smiled Loras as he hoisted his nephew up over his shoulder.

_Little Lord, thought Sansa. We called Bran the little lord. And now he is not a little lord any longer. Now he is a man grown, and Lord of Winterfell aswell.  
_She had been meaning to visit Winterfell, but she had not had the chance. She hadn't been there in nearly 20 years, and since then, her two younger brothers had restored the castle since then, and she had also heard that Jon Snow had helped them to restore it.

"Sansa?" asked Willas, and she was snapped out of her thoughts abruptly.

"Sorry, my lord" she smiled, "what is it?" she asked gently

"Loras had asked if he may bring Rickard along to some more training afternoons, along with Willem. I told him I must ask you first" he smiled

"I don't see why he could not, he is twelve after all. Yes, I think some extra will do him well" she answered

"But you mustn't forget your studies!" she added as an after thought

"Nor you, Tomard!" she called to the youngest boy, who had returned to wheeling about the courtyard, this time with Loras chasing him.

"Father! I want to go to training too!" he protested at the mention of his name. "Willem and Rickard both get to go to training!" he pouted.

Willas pulled his son up onto the bench beside him before he looked him in the eye. "Your time will come, my son. But they were both seven or eight when they began, and you only six."

"Perhaps the bow, for now?" suggested Sansa.

"Oh yes, father please?" begged the boy

"You'll have to ask Loras! He might be lacking in that area!" jested the Lord of Highgarden

"Loras! Please can I? Please?" came the immediate response

"Of course. I will have you be a marksman in no time" answered Loras

Sansa looked on in silence as her husband, brother and sons spoke of swords and steel and fighting, and her hand found it's way to Willas'.

Winter was 11 moons past, and the maesters had predicted a long summer. All of her children, bar Willem, had been born in the winter. Sansa was glad that summer was not all that they had ever known, or they would have expected a life without hardship, without loss. But she had made sure that they knew that life was not a song.

Her eldest sons knew the truth of what had happened to her in the capital, in King's Landing. But they had made sure to teach them that it did not make all stags or all lions evil. They knew the difference, just as well as they knew that the struggle for good and evil came within the human heart, within everyone, not between groups of people fighting for different causes. Willas and Sansa had wanted their children to be good and just, world weary but not paranoid, and forgiving but not naïve.

Sansa had lived in Highgarden for over 15 years, but it still felt like only a moon ago that she had come here. She had watched her eldest son, Willem, be raised almost all the way to manhood. Within the year, he would be a man grown, but he would always be her dear son. Rickard was close behind, only three years between them, and even then, he was very mature for his age, like Jon Snow was at his age, though Rickard did not have to grow up as fast as Jon did. Tomard was half Rickard's age, but he still played with both of his elder brother's, though not as much with Willem, who was more of a mentor to him than a play mate, simply due to the age difference. And in her arms was Desmera, her youngest child and only daughter. She cried little, and already her three elder brothers loved her beyond anything. It reminded her of her brother Robb, and Sansa hoped that her three boys would be as good to Desmera as her own siblings had been to each other.

Fifteen years in Highgarden, and it never got old. The roses smelt just as sweet every passing day, and walks in the castle gardens with Willas were only more enjoyable as time went on. Of course she missed her true home, the North, but Highgarden was a better second home that King's Landing could ever be, and her time here with Willas only made her gladder that she never married Joffrey Baratheon.

_Yes, _she thought,_ I will be content to live here for the rest of my days. I could hope for no better place to raise my children._


End file.
